Library

Consisting of a general collection and several special collections, the SRIFIAS Library is one of North America’s premier resources for teaching and research in the history, languages, literatures, geography, ethnographies, and religions of Central and Inner Asia. The SRIFIAS Library Catalog, comprising about 10,000 volumes, is available on line and can be accessed either at this site or through the general catalogue of the IU Library System. The Library also houses a number of current journals, audio tapes, maps, and slides.

The SRIFIAS Library also houses several special collections, including:

The Central Asian Archives

The Ilhan Başgöz Turkish Folklore Archive

The Tibetan Collection

The Eberhard Archive

The Dudukalev Archive

The David Straub Archive of Police Dossiers from Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution

The Tajik Oral History Archive

The collections includes works in all major European languages as well as in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, Persian, Arabic, Tajik, Turkish, Azeri, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Uyghur, Chaghatay, and other languages of historical and contemporary regional peoples.

While many rare and otherwise inaccessible publications are available, the collection’s primary value lies in its assemblage, in a single convenient location, of all basic reference works, language textbooks, grammars, dictionaries, and important monographs relevant to Central and Inner Asian studies.

The SRIFIAS is a non-lending library. Its staff welcomes general and specialized reference queries, but cannot accept requests for duplication, scanning, mailing, etc. of materials, or requests to conduct research.

The SRIFIAS Library collections are complemented by the extensive resources of the Indiana University Libraries.